Payback Incentives™, an online employee recognition and sales incentive program originally built in 2006 by Lockport's J. Fitzgerald Group is being re-launched as a do-it-yourself, e-gift recognition system that any company can afford to use.

Utilizing the 10 years of experience running programs for local and international companies such as Columbus McKinnon, Millington Lockwood, Delta Airlines, Volvo Construction Equipment, Leica Geosystems, Neenah Paper and many more, Payback Incentives is designed to offer all the features companies need to motivate and reward their employees – but at a fraction of the cost.

“Most incentive program providers charge thousands – and sometimes tens of thousands of dollars – just to get a program running. And then they chip away at you with add-on fees,” Said J. Fitzgerald Group President Jack Martin. “We decided to completely do away with all the costs that make it impossible for most companies to use an online system.”

Payback Incentives features no setup fees, contracts, minimum purchases, delivery fees or per user fees and there is no markup on e-gift cards.

“You just use it when you need it – and delivery is instant via email,” according to Martin. “You could literally buy points, award them to an employee and they could redeem them and have the e-gift card all in a matter of minutes.”

The points-based program charges $1 per point, which equals $1 in incentive value. It will initially be offered with two plan options:

Starter – allows a company to purchase points and distribute them to up to 250 participants, who can trade them in for a wide variety of e-gift cards. The only cost is the purchase of points.

Advanced – for just $99/mo., the company can have unlimited participants. In addition, the administrator can assign points to others in the organization. They can, in turn, re-assign them to others to use as peer-to-peer recognition or manager to employee rewards, or grant them directly to participants for immediate use. There are also multiple levels of approval available and greater access to reports. There is no minimum amount of months to purchase, but companies that buy a year in advance will save an additional 10 percent, making the annual cost $1,069 regardless of the number of participants.

"If you give out occasional awards to employees, the Starter Plan is perfect for you because you’ll never have to buy and manage gift cards – or give everyone the same incentive award – again,” Martin said. “But if you have a larger organization or just want employees to recognize each other – or allow managers to directly reward team members – then the Advanced Plan is ideal."

In addition to the drastic cost reduction, Payback Incentives can be set up and running for companies within 1 business day. Martin stated that new program features will be added monthly, with an Employee Recognition Pro Plan on the way in early 2016 along with a Sales Incentive Plan that will offer a similar pricing structure and multiple program options.

“We just think it’s time that every company – from five employees to 100,000 employees – have access to a system that allows them to spend virtually every penny on incenting their employees instead of paying for the online service or outrageous markups on incentives,” Martin stated. “In fact, locally we’ve already signed up UBMD Orthopaedics, The Ross Eye Institute and Cornerstone
Community Federal Credit Union for the program – and we’ve also picked up some new clients from across the U.S. as well prior to the official launch.”

Payback Incentives is a proprietary software platform developed and supported by JFG, an international advertising and branding firm founded in 2002. JFG originally built the program to help its advertising clients motivate employees, sales teams and vendors.